Prescription drugs are a constant growing component to our health care system. Almost half of all Americans take at least one prescription drug. Almost half of all Americans over the age of 65 take three or more prescription drugs. Typically, the effectiveness of the drug or drugs are dependent on the user following the instructions of the prescribing physician, i.e. taking the right amount of the drug at the right time, which is referred to as compliance. However, users frequently forget when to take their next dosage or whether they have taken their last dosage or not, which leads to them either skipping a dosage or repeating a dosage.
Devices to help remind or keep track of a user's drug intake are known. Integrating these devices into the closure caps of the medicine containers that hold the drugs is also known. The integration of the device into the closure cap is advantageous because it prevents the reminder device from being separated from the drugs.
Known integrated devices typically have a limited time duration that they can effectively track or indicate. Specifically, many known devices can only indicate the number of hours or the next day for the next dosage. However, displaying limited time information is problematic when the dosage duration is greater than a day or a week.
Another problem with some known integrated devices is the difficulty users may have in reading and understanding the indicia. The size of the text or reading the text though a small viewing cut-out may make reading the text difficult. Also the layout of the indicia may be confusing making it difficult to understand.
An additional drawback with some of the known integrated devices is the possibility of inadvertently changing the reminder device when the user is trying to remove the closure cap to access the drugs. This is especially likely when the same kind of rotational movement is necessary to either set the reminder device or remove the closure cap from the container.
Cost is another drawback with some of the known integrated devices. Pharmacists are not allowed to reuse medicine containers such as vials or the closure caps for the vials. The caps, even with an integrated time reminder device, are disposed of once the drugs in the vial are used up. Because the caps are a disposable item, the users and drug companies are sensitive to cost associated with them.
In light of the foregoing, it is desirable to provide an inexpensive integrated and disposable time reminder closure cap for a medicine vial that is easy to read and use. It would be advantageous for the time-reminder cap to work with prescriptions having a variety of dosage durations, including durations greater than a day. Furthermore, it would be advantageous if the closure cap had protection against inadvertent changes to the time-date indicators.